Category: Flowers

A dull day – 29 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I drove for about three minutes today. I must have driven about 200m. That’s as far as I wanted to go.

Last night I’d parked at the top of the road, because we didn’t get back from dancing until after 11pm. That meant almost all the parking spaces were gone. This morning a space appeared, so I walked up the road and drove the car down to a space outside the house. I locked it and went home. That was the sum total of my walks today. It was such a dull day I didn’t want to go anywhere. I knew the light would be poor wherever I went on the central belt. Today’s PoD was going to be another tabletop.

Lunch was the usual Sunday fry-up and dinner was, as predicted, yesterday’s curry reheated with some yoghurt added to thicken up the sauce and some Garam Masala for flavour and a pinch of hot chilli powder to give it a little kick. Still it needed something and we were both at a loss as to what that was. It filled a wee space. That’s about as good as it got.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard about their plumbing problems. Glad to hear you got them fixed.

PoD was a tabletop. It’s the desiccated flowers from a Christmas flowering cactus. Pretty little things in their own right.

That’ about it for the day. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go out for lunch somewhere. More later, hopefully.

Dancin’ in the Evenin’ – 28 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

That was the focus of the day really. The light that would brighten our day. Would we go to the dancin’ in the Evenin’ or not?

It was a bright start to the day with sunshine streaming in the front window and it was when it lit up the wee bowl of roses that sat on the coffee table that I grabbed my camera and took the first photos of the day. I discovered that if I angled the shot in the right way I could frame the flowers with the black screen of the TV. In fact, if I chose to use the long lens of the 105mm macro, I could make the TV screen appear bigger and therefore give a bit more of a background than if I used any of my other lenses. Too much information? Probably. Anyway, it worked and I’d a shot or fifteen in the bag.

Scamp had already decided yesterday not to go to today’s dance class on the grounds that she might still pass on her coughs and sneezes and as it takes two to tango or quickstep or even waltz, that meant I didn’t go either. I didn’t mind, because I’m a lazy so and so and another hour in bed suited me fine.

After she took her final meds for the week, she began to feel better and the coughing reduced in intensity and volume. It looked as if we might go to the ball tonight after all. We didn’t have any cans of juice or lemonade to take to the Saturday Social and it’s not a tea dance, so we walked down to the shops to get some. On the way back I took a detour through St Mo’s and the best I got was a couple of shots of golden light on the trees across the pond. It didn’t matter, because I was sure one of the shots of the roses would fill the bill for PoD.

It turned out I was right. With a little Photoshop jiggery pokery I had a decent shot of roses bathed in sunlight, contrasted against a black background. The shots of the trees across the pond just looked dull and uninteresting by comparison.

Dinner was Easy Chicken Curry from a recipe I’d read about in last year’s blog post where I’d written about the previous year’s blog post, (January 2021) and it was back in 2021 I found the recipe and instructions. It was messy to make up with half a dozen spices mixed by hand into the chicken, but after that and with yellow fingers from the turmeric I fried the chicken and added tomatoes. Basically that was the curry made.

After dinner we dressed for the social and drove to an already busy Brookfield where we got seated with Barry & Cath and Niahmat & Audrey. No holds barred in that crowd, everyone got a slagging for one reason or another. Also Niahmat and Scamp shared notes (no pun intended) on singing with the SNO chorus.

We danced almost every dance we knew, but I drew the line at quickstep. I really didn’t think Scamp was fit for that kind of dancing. We did one of every dance, remembering the nurse’s message not to overdo things. We left just before the end because we were both tired out.

How nice it was to travel over the Kingston Bridge at a gentle 40mph when we’re usually stuck to a stop/start 4 or 5mph on a good day.

Tomorrow we’ll do a self assessment to see how much energy we expended doing the most intensive exercise we’ve had all week. No plans for going anywhere.

The Fort and The Luggie – 26 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We were off to The Fort today, again in brilliant sunshine.

Scamp wanted to return some things and I wanted to spend some book tokens. We did think we’d manage lunch too. That didn’t happen, but two out of three ain’t bad. I did get my book and it’s a physical book, not a Kindle or an audio book. I blame Hazy for that after she gave me an over 470 page book for Christmas. That’s given me back the incentive to start reading ‘paper’ books. Not so good for reading in bed, in the dark, but easier to pass on to someone else.

Scamp got her money back from pre-Christmas purchases then charged round the big new Boots trying to find nail varnish remover. To be honest, it’s the worst laid out shop I’ve ever been to. Almost no signage to help the unwary and ultra safety conscious. Any shop where you have to produce proof of age to buy a foil for an electric razor is taking things too far.

We bought some food, some flowers and NO DRINK in M&S, not that we often buy drink there. No, we get most of it from Tesco where it’s cheaper. As it happened, neither of us were bothered with going for lunch and we just drove home … after we found the car in the enormous Fort car park.

After lunch I went for a walk, not in St Mo’s today, but along the Luggie Water. It’s ages since I’ve walked the Luggie and I really quite enjoyed the walk. PoD is a shot, taken with the A6000 of the falls at the east end of the path. Taken with an ultra-wide angle lens, from almost at the water level with the camera on the Gorilla Pod and with a slow shutter speed to ensure I got some movement in the water. I was concentrating on the technicals of the shot and hadn’t noticed, until I looked at the shot on the computer that it looks like there’s a giant Platypus Duck coming out of the waterfall!

Mushroom Risotto for dinner. Hand made in a pot on the stove this time using a cherrywood paddle. Sometime it’s best to take the technology out of food preparation. It was lovely, by the way.

Scamp seems to have lost most of the squeaks and whistles that the cough was helping to produce. Also, although she’s still coughing, she feels that the phlegm is moving out of her system.

Tonight looks cold again (-2ºc) but tomorrow the clouds and rain are rolling in, so maybe not a good day for a walk. Glad we got out today.

A late start and a lovely day – 25 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I must have been tired, because it was well past 9am when I woke today.

Scamp was already awake and reading her Kindle. She too must have had a good night’s sleep. It’s good to see her beginning to improve.

I though we might go for a walk today because it was a bright winter’s day. Scamp said we needed some shopping, so I suggested we drive to Lidl in Kilsyth to get the shopping then go for a walk along the canal. Just a short walk along the canal cross over the Plantation and back along the old mineral line. That would cover both options. So that’s what we did, kind of!

We drove to Lidl and got the messages as usual and also as usual we bought more than was absolutely necessary. We even found they had Neapolitan ice cream wafers! Sharp eyed Scamp spotted them in a freezer. When we came out Scamp asked if we could go to Colzium instead of the canal. The suited me too, so we drove in to the parking area that has more craters than the moon (I’ve never been to the moon, but I’ve seen pictures and Colzium wins on crater count). Parking was easy, it was just the driving that was dangerous!

We walked a slightly shortened version of our usual exhausting climb along the banks of the Colzium Burn and Scamp managed it easily. I got lots of photos, from little pockets of snowdrops to rushing waterfalls the burn was tumbling through. PoD was a 15 frame panorama that was eventually cropped down to a 12 frame. I felt the sky was a bit bland, although it was a beautiful blue, so I slipped in another one, one of my own from a few months ago. It seemed to suit the picture. It’s a view across the farmland of the Colzium Estate.

Back home it was Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, because it was Burns Night tonight and Haggis, mashed Turnip (Neeps) and mashed Potatoes (Tatties) is traditional. It was absolutely lovely and as Scamp herself remarked perfectly portioned. Not too much of any of the constituent parts.

I forgot to mention that my new driving license dropped through the letterbox this morning. Once you reach 70 you have to update your driving license every three years. My update is now almost complete. I still have to post off my previous license which I have cut in half as required by the DVLA. Scamp got her first one a week ago.

Tomorrow we may be driving to the Fort to visit M&S and Waterstones. I’ll let you guess who goes where!

 

It was a dull day again – 24 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Worse than that, it was a dull day with rain. Never a good combination.

Scamp’s cough wasn’t abating and by the time I’d showered and shaved, she was just ending a call to the doc’s and had been given an appointment with the nurse for mid afternoon.

It hadn’t looked as if we would be going anywhere anyway, and as the cough had been there since Friday, it was time to let a professional have a look at it. I was planning on making a pot of soup in the new magic pot. This was to be Minestrone, but a different recipe from our usual one. Some unusual ingredients like courgette in the recipe would be interesting.

We drove up to the surgery. I dropped Scamp there and then went to Tesco to get the extra ingredients for the soup. I also managed to get a bottle of Benylin, Red Benylin no less. This is the most sought after medicine of the moment and here was a bottle sitting on a shelf, the last one again. Yesterday’s bottle of Benylin had been the wrong one, but it too had been the last one on the shelf. Drove back to the surgery and was just parking when Scamp appeared from the chemist and we drove home. She was told to take 8 steroid pills a day for five days and was also give a five day course of antibiotics. Shake her and she’ll rattle! but they seem to work because she’s not coughing quite as much.

I chopped the veg and made the soup and it tasted really too thick and quite bitter. A generous pinch of sugar helped with the bitter taste and after decanting a bowl full of concentrated tomato soup and replacing it with a bowl full of hot water, then giving it another 3min pressure cook, we had a decent minestrone. Still not as good as the original, but the courgette worked well in the mixture of veg. My only mistake was channeling my Simon & Garfunkel when I bought my herbs. I bought Sage and it should have been Thyme. Parsley would have been good too, but Rosemary would have been overpowering. You can have too much of a good thing!!

We watched an episode of Silent Witness, but the shock factor is being overplayed now and it’s becoming difficult to see where the past ends and the present begins. We both agreed after the first episode that it’s time to put it to bed, so the entire series was deleted. Thankfully you can do that with just one button now on Virgin.

I’d decided when we came back from the doc’s that I wasn’t going out in the drizzly rain to take photos I wasn’t really interested in. That’s why today’s PoD is cut flowers. Usually a photo of flowers is a last resort for me, but today’s were planned and I knew Scamp was just waiting for an opportunity to throw some of the wilting flowers out and the wilting ones are my favourites. I could have used more interesting lighting, but I was happy with my Yellow Lilies. They became PoD.

Tomorrow is to be a better day than today. We might just manage a short walk if Scamp is up to it. We’ll wait and see.

 

Dancin’ … badly – 12 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was the first Tea Dance of the year.

It was raining when we woke, which wasn’t surprising because it had been raining all night after a beautifully clear day yesterday. When I was opening the curtains this morning I was drawn to the distortion caused by raindrops running down the window. I thought the two geranium plants made a good foreground and trusting my new phone, I took some shots as ‘bankers’, just in case I didn’t get a chance to get some with my ‘real’ camera. That was a good move, as it turned out, because the rain just kept coming all day.

By midday we were almost ready to drive to Glenburn, south of Paisley for the tea dance. A much smaller group than normal today which was a double edged sword. More room to practise the moves we had sort of forgotten, but on the other hand, nowhere to hide when we made mistakes, and we did make mistakes, both of us. I was the worst though, I’ll admit it. Even dancing the two simple waltzes we know I still managed to make a load of mistakes. Sequence dances I could handle, but it’s the repetition that cements the steps and of course the ‘sequence’ of those steps. The other plus for sequence dances is that they are danced in a circle, so most of the time there’s someone in front of you to watch and learn from. Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep are a different kettle of fish. You’re out on a limb with them. If you do find yourself making mistakes or if you lose the sequence of the steps, your partner is going to give you THAT STARE! I know, I’ve been there. Having said all that, we had a great time. Almost two hours of dancing that passed in a flash. We sat with Barry and Cath and the conversation was good.

Drove home through more lashing rain and went the ‘long way’ down the M74 and the M73 and continued on to Tesco to post a birthday card to one of Scamp’s pals and get some Thursday stuff. You know what I mean. Thursday is still ‘Prize day’.

Dinner was a fall back, Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti (it has to be tinned spaghetti). The fish fingers went between two pieces of butter bread and became a Fish Finger Sandwich. Delicious.

Remember those photos I took in the morning? One of them became PoD. I’d shot them in RAW format. Very few phone cameras will record in RAW which is an uncompressed, unprocessed, literally raw image file. Usually it takes up a lot more space in the phone’s memory, but the excellent quality makes up for that. I dumped them into Lightroom and after half an hour of tweaking it looked presentable, so that’s what you see here.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Scamp’s intending to go out to FitSteps class in the morning and I’m hoping to start by making the dough for the night’s bread. John & Marion are coming to dinner. First time they’ve been here for ages. Looking forward to it.

What!! No Coffee!!! – 8 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The orange warning light was flashing on the coffee maker this morning, indicating that its innards needed cleaning and I had no cleaning solution. Oh my! What would I do without coffee?

Well, the answer, of course was to look on Amazon. Ah the relief, they had the descaled, but it wouldn’t be delivered until TUESDAY!!! That would be three days before I’d get my 11am fix. What other options were there. Thankfully JL came to the rescue. John Lewis had them in stock and actually cheaper than Amazon too, so I could get them today. We just dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove to Glasgow where I picked up the life saving liquid. Scamp was looking for tops to go with skirts, but I had the important stuff paid for and in my bag. We’d nothing else to go for today, so we just drove home.

After lunch I started the long winded cleaning routine. It takes a good half hour to descale the boiler of the De Longhi 685 and then another fifteen minutes to wash it out. Life is tough when you’re a home barista.

While I was engaged in this delicate operation, Scamp was out pruning the roses and tidying up the plants in the back garden. She came in to tell me she’d found a Snowdrop, the first one of the winter, and a sign that spring wasn’t too far off. The flower was growing in a rose pot, surrounded by vicious looking thorns, so I was extra careful getting its photo, but I did get it, more than once. We compared the photos I’d taken and Scamp chose her favourite. She’s becoming really good at spotting the good shots and sidelining the poorer ones. I think she chose the best one to be PoD and I started work on it.

She was almost finished when I thought I’d broaden my photographic horizons and went over to St Mo’s to see if I could capture some of the reflections of the setting sun from the boardwalk. I managed a good dozen shots of various formats and angles and then quite suddenly, the light was gone. It was like the sunsets you get in much warmer places, when the sun sets and fifteen minutes later it’s almost dark. It’s not something you find very often in more temperate zones. It didn’t matter all that much, because I was on my way home by then.

Dinner was Chicken Milanese (battered flat and dipped in breadcrumbs before being pan fried) with a baked potato each. Beautiful. It was followed by coffee from the sparkling clean and descaled coffee maker. I’d say the coffee was better than normal, but it was probably something to do with the extra glug of Kahlua that went into each cup.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard that he’s got ‘Mallet Finger’. I was telling him that my pal, Fred has ‘Hammer Thumb’ which sounds similar and that I get a less painful version of that. Then the strangest thing happened, my thumb (always my left thumb) went into spasm and folded across my palm and refused to come back out. How strange is that.

Tomorrow Scamp is out in the morning for coffee with one of her, recently retired, work colleagues. I’m tidying up the living room table of all the calendar junk that’s been living on it for the past month. If it’s dry I may go and take some photos in St Mo’s.

No’ Dancin’ – 3 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We were supposed to go to the dance class this morning, but I’d had an upset night with pains in my stomach, probably from eating too much too late yesterday. Also yesterday evening Crawford and I had been sampling some whisky, so I decided it would be safer not to drive this morning, just in case..

We had a fairly lazy morning and I ended up patching together the Lightroom catalog. That patching up actually lasted for most of the afternoon too. Sixty one images to find, edit and turn into the ones in the Flickr and Blog posts. It all takes time, but now it’s done. Tonight, before I go to bed I’m going to back-up the catalog!

Scamp ventured out in the afternoon to walk to the shops for some messages, but I wasn’t past the door today. Still not feeling quite right. Not ill or anything, just not feeling great.

As well as patching up the Lightroom cat, I also wrote yesterday’s blog because there simply wasn’t time to do it yesterday. I hate having to write catch-up blog posts, but like the editing of the photos, it all takes time and now it too is done.

Didn’t go out, didn’t go dancing, just stayed in the house and moped all day. Well, actually I did go out. I went out to the front garden and photographed one of Scamp’s roses, “Simply the Best”. It’s well named. This is its second flowering this year and it looked great with the raindrops on the petals.

So I did go out, but only just! Tomorrow will be better. Hopefully we’ll both go out together for a walk.

Happy Birthday Hazy – 2 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Happy Birthday Hazy. Hope your day was less frantic than ours.

Today was always going to be a busy day, but cramming too much into one day is never a good thing.

The day started well for me. I measured out the ingredients to make a loaf and got the mixer to do the hard work, then left it to do its first rise. Also, I was getting things organised in my head for repairing the damage I’d inflicted on my Lightrooom catalog yesterday. One simple bit of digital housework led to a scrambled catalog. The Lightroom catalog holds the records of everything you do to every photo. Every adjustment however small is recorded and can be played back and altered later … until you screw it up. After that, Lightroom is no longer your friend. I left it last night and by this morning I’d worked out how to fix it.

Scamp meantime had gone off early, 9.15am early, to get her hair cut. She arrived back about an hour later with a new cut that she didn’t like. She rarely likes the cut she gets, but it’s nothing to do with the hairdresser, it just her resisting change, I think. She came home for a fleeting visit, had a cup of coffee and was out again to go to FitSteps class wearing her new dance trainers that make spinning easier!

<Technospeak>
After Scamp left, I started work on the repair. It involved moving the damaged files to a temporary drive, erasing everything on the old drive then putting everything back again, in the right order. Simple. Except, somewhere along the line I forgot to move the catalog on to the temporary drive and when I formatted the original drive, my catalog was destroyed. Only after I had put everything in place did I discover that the catalog couldn’t be found. What a numpty. As usual, I had a backup on the system that gave me nine months worth of catalog data, but October and November were gone into the ether.
</Technospeak>

I wasn’t a happy bunny when Scamp came home, but things brightened up again when Hazy organised a Zoom call. We had about an hour’s worth of relaxed conversation and heard about the further complications of Neil’s op and what it feels like to have your own house. We were both pleased that she liked her birthday present.

Back to work, My bread needed to be ‘knocked back’ that means you knock all the air out of it and put it into a wicker basket to let it do its second rise before it goes into the oven. Going in to the oven at that moment was Scamp’s Chicken and Mushroom Pithivier. A posh name for a Chicken and Mushroom Pie. I’d drawn a circle or exactly 35mm diameter and another of 30mm diameter on greaseproof paper using an old pair of compasses to act as a template for cutting the pastry. It looked good as it went in to the oven, nothing to do with my drawing, but everything to do with Scamp’s skill. When it came out, the bread was ready to go in for its 20min bake and it looked good when it came out, as did Scamp’s Pithivier.

A bit of a break before we cleared the dining table and dressed it up for tonight’s dinner with Crawford and Nancy. The menu was Sweet Potato and Peppers Soup, Chicken and Mushroom Pithivier with potatoes and broccoli followed by Dutch Apple Cake with Custard or Cream.

C&N arrived a bit later than expected, but we had a good night. Lots of catching up and lots of laughter. Maybe a bit too much to drink and certainly far too much to eat.

Just after midnight we waved them off on their journey home and settled down to calm down.

PoD was a Fuchsia in the back garden flowering long after it should have shut down for the winter.

Tomorrow (today) we’re intending to go to Brookfield for our Saturday dance class.

December’s here! – 1 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Got a lot to do in the morning, and dancing in the afternoon.

While I was bringing in the bins in the rain this morning, I saw a few little leaves on the path and got some photos of them and they would have been PoD until I saw the Ammi majus, like a delicate cow parsley, in the back garden with its flower heads holding a vast amount of rain drops. That became PoD.

It wasn’t our best set of dances, more like a refresher for us and a chance for some exercise! Heavens, we couldn’t even remember how to do the “Baby Waltz” which is a short and fairly easy waltz. Sometimes we practise and practise the more difficult new dances and forget to refresh the older ones. I’d say we’ll practice some more for Saturday’s class, but that’s unlikely we’ve been busy tonight but more of that later.

Today was a Christmas Tea Dance. Christmas themed dress was encouraged. Scamp had her Christmas Tree dress and I had my jolly reindeer tee shirt. We did manage to struggle through the new Cameron Quickstep, but that was mainly my problem. Sequence dances are easier for me, firstly because they are short and secondly because they are repetitive and muscle memory makes it easier to remember. Longer dances like the quickstep and foxtrot are interesting and challenging and I enjoy them one I’ve worked out the pattern of the individual steps. I think “could do better” would be the comment on my dance card for today.

Back home Scamp suggested a fish supper each would be a good idea, because Crawford and Nancy are coming for dinner Tomorrow and we knew we’d be doing prep tonight. I’m in charge of soup and bread. Scamp is in charge of the main course and pudding. She wanted the main course started tonight and I wanted to get the soup made too. So, we took turns working around each other doing our prep and lessening the load for tomorrow. So far, the soup is made and the main has been cooked. The fish ’n’ chips were brilliant. Just thought you’d like to know!

Tomorrow the prep and cooking continues. I’m hoping to get the bread started in the morning and then Scamp can continue with her prep. So, very little time for photos, but hopefully I’ll find something.